Karina Festival

Karavan Press at the FLF 2024

The Franschhoek Literary Festival – 17 to 19 May – is just around the corner and it promises to be another exciting literary adventure. We are thrilled to be involved. You can listen to and meet Karavan Press at the following events:

FRIDAY

11:30-12:30 | [6] THE SOLACE OF STORY
OLD SCHOOL HALL
When the world is falling apart, a novel can help. John Maytham digs into the empathetic and cathartic power of fiction with Andrew Brown, whose new thriller, The Bitterness of Olives, is set against the backdrop of the Israel–Palestine crisis; and with Ian Sutherland, whose new historical novel Catastrophe deals with the Chernobyl nuclear meltdown of 1986.

13:00-14:15 | [18] THAT’S WHAT SHE SAID (Screening)
FRANSCHHOEK THEATRE
Natasha Sutherland’s inventive documentary begins by observing the making of a stage adaptation of Tracy Going’s book Brutal Legacy, in which she reveals her past experience of abusive relationships. It then documents the frank conversations that follow between
members of the audience. A powerful social dialogue about men, women and violence.

14:30-15:30 | [26] GOOD THINGS IN SMALL PACKAGES
COUNCIL CHAMBERS
In an age of attention deficits, short fiction is in demand. Diane Awerbuck (Inside Your Body There Are Flowers) discusses the nuts and bolts of the form with three writers: Troy Onyango (For What Are Butterflies Without Their Wings), Frankie Murrey (Everyone Dies) and Dawn Garisch (What Remains).

16:00-17:00 | [32] TURNING THE TIDE
CONGREGATIONAL CHURCH
Anti-GBV awareness campaigns are not stopping the war waged on women by violent men. What will? How will the codes of South African masculinity be rewritten? Tracy Going (Brutal Legacy) speaks to Andy Kawa (Kwanele, Enough!) and Joy Watson (Striving for Social Equity).

SATURDAY

10:00-11:00 | [47] A HOME IS NOT A HOUSE (Screening)
FRANSCHHOEK THEATRE
Written by Lester Walbrugh (Elton Baatjies) and directed by Earl Kopeledi, this short film is a bold exploration of Cape Town’s class and race chasms – and the weight of personal histories. Three homeless people are tasked with retrieving a hard drive from a beachside bungalow. They stick around to luxuriate, but then it gets complicated …
Lester Walbrugh and Earl Kopeledi will give a short Q&A after the screening.

13:00-14:00 | [61] THE GRIM READER
CHURCH HALL
“No two people ever read the same book”, reckoned literary critic Edmund Wilson. Even so, a writer’s imaginary reader can become a singular presence — one that variously needs to be defied, satisfied, seduced or erased. 2023 Sunday Times Literary Awards winner, C.A. Davids (How to Be a Revolutionary) swaps notes on readers with Karen Jennings (Crooked
Seeds), Ivan Vladislavić (The Near North) and Craig Higginson (The Ghost of Sam Webster).

13:00-14:00 | [64] SIGNS OF A STRUGGLE
HOSPICE HALL
Sponsored by Pam Golding Properties
Thobeka Yose (In Silence My Heart Speaks) tells Sara-Jayne Makwala King about her experience of parenting a transgender child – and of understanding her child’s attempted suicide. How can parents of teenagers recognise a crisis, and fight the transphobia that inhibits teens from seeking help?

14:30-15:30 | [71] IN THE THIRST PERSON
CHURCH HALL
Having good sex is apparently easier than writing good sex scenes. But that’s not rocket science, surely? Letlhogonolo Mokgoroane juggles the ins and outs of high-end lit smut with Busisekile Khumalo (Sunshine and Shadows), Joy Watson (The Other Me) and Kobby Ben Ben (No One Dies Yet).

SUNDAY

10:00-11:00 | [88] THE WRITE THERAPIST
OLD SCHOOL HALL
Sewela Langeni gathers three writers who have grappled with personal trauma: memoirists Thobeka Yose (In Silence My Heart Speaks) and Margie Orford (Love and Fury); and Megan Choritz in Lost Property, a work of fiction. Does the ordeal of writing a painful history dispel the pain, and how?

10:00-11:00 | [92] STUCK IN THE MIDDLE
HOSPICE HALL
Sponsored by Pam Golding Properties
Claustrophobic tensions drive the acclaimed new novels by Booker long-listed Karen
Jennings (whose Crooked Seeds proceeds from the discovery of human remains on a
family’s land) and Nick Mulgrew (whose Tunnel traps a random group of travellers in
a Cape highway tunnel). Both of these taut literary thrillers conjure unnerving versions
of South African reality. Karina Szczurek will ask them to dig deep.

11:30-12:30 | [96] HOW TO GRIP
CHURCH HALL
Being unputdownable is a delicious dream for most fiction writers, but a rare knack. Still, some of the narrative tricks that make for a one-sitting read can be acquired, as Danielle Weakley learns when speaking with Femi Kayode (Gaslight), Fiona Snyckers (The Hidden) and Nick Mulgrew (Tunnel).

For the full programme, click here:

FLF 2024

Tickets:

Webtickets

Karina Author, Book, Event

The Bitterness of Olives launched at Liberty Books

We launched The Bitterness of Olives by Andrew Brown at Liberty Books last night. Andrew always knew that it would be difficult to talk about his latest novel which is set at the heart of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, but no one could have predicted just how topical the book would become. It was published in time for the Open Book Festival in early September, almost exactly a month before the 7th of October. Since then, the world the novel is set in has once again been completely shattered by violence and suffering. It has become even more fraught to discuss the novel in the context of our tragic present, but the way Christy Weyer and Andrew spoke about it last night was soul-restoring. Thank you both for your kindness, integrity and courage! Thank you for offering insight and gentleness at a time when both are deeply needed.

Thank you to all who attended, but especially to Karavan Press authors Lester Walbrugh and Joanne Hichens for your continued support!

Lester also baked fresh bread (best in the country!) for the occasion, and fittingly, we enjoyed it with olives. Thank you, Lester!

Lester also shared the good news with us that one of his stories from Let It Fall Where It Will has been turned into a short film which will premier in the new year, and that he has finished editing the first Afrikaans book that Karavan Press will publish, a memoir by Erika Viljoen!

Launching The Bitterness of Olives at Liberty Books was the perfect way to end a year of exciting book events. Thank you to Christy for being a champion of local literature, for inviting us to share our stories with the wonderful readers of Elgin and for leading the conversations that make us believe that what we do is meaningful to others.

Dear festive season travellers! If you are on the N2 in Grabouw, stop at Liberty Books for your holiday read fix. You will not regret it!

Karina Author, Book, Festival

Kingsmead Book Fair 2023

Another highly successful Kingsmead Book Fair (KBF) is behind us. And we had so much literary fun! Joanne Hichens, Lester Walbrugh and I were on the same flight going up to Johannesburg. We all spoke at the festival – Lester and I about Elton Baatjies, and Joanne and I about Fluid: The Freedom to Be.

We ‘met’ Joy Watson and Lethokuhle Msimang at the airport on the bookshelves of Exclusive Books.

What is the best way of passing flight time? Reading, of course.

We joined Joy on the morning of the book fair and dived into the busy, amazing programme of this year’s KBF that had something to offer for EVERYONE.

Authors met up in the Green Room for refreshments and a bit of rest between the fascinating sessions.

Exclusive Books pop-up shop at the KBF. Two of our titles sold out at the book fair!

It was wonderful to meet Jarred Thompson and Lerato Moletsane in person – both contributed to Fluid: The Freedom to Be.

Thank you to the organisers of the book fair, to everyone who came to listen to us, to all who bought books and made the KBF 2023 such a joyous book fair. Already counting the days until KBF 2024!

Happy reading!

Karina Author, Book, Festival

Karavan Press at FLF 2023

Two Karavan Press authors are speaking about their work at this year’s edition of the Franschhoek Literary Festival (FLF): Lester Walbrugh and Lethokuhle Msimang.

Click on the images below to book your ticket for the individual sessions.

You can buy their books in advance of the festival via the FLF website (and Exclusive Books):

Two other Karavan Press authors – Joy Watson and Nancy Richards – are chairing a few sessions:

We look forward to seeing you in Franschhoek!

Karina Author, Book, Review

Joy Watson reviews ELTON BAATJIES by Lester Walbrugh

Lester Walbrugh’s ‘Elton Baatjies’ shows us the treacherous terrain of stepping into who we are

Elton Baatjies is a tour de force. It is a carefully crafted book and its temporal sense of time and location are brought to life beautifully.

Elton Baatjies is based on the story of Norman Simons who stalked and killed boys on the Cape Flats between 1986 and 1995. Dubbed “the station strangler”, Simons is thought to have been responsible for sodomising and strangling 22 boys. The evidence at the time could only link him to the death of one, 10-year-old Elroy van Rooyen. Simons was a schoolteacher, which made his arrest particularly shocking.   

Elton Baatjies is set in the Elgin Valley, about an hour’s drive from Cape Town. The story opens with Elton taking up a job as an English teacher at a local school. The community is in uproar because six boys have been raped, murdered and dumped down the side of the mountain …

Continue reading: Daily Maverick

Karina Author, Book, Event

Salon Hecate launched at Noordhoek Art Point

SALON HECATE was launched Noordhoek Art Point last night. Art lovers from across the peninsula gathered to celebrate the new space which will welcome readings, book signings and discussions throughout 2023 and beyond.

Thank you to the gallery and Helen Moffett for welcoming writers into this exciting place of co-existence between the visual arts and literature.

Melissa A. Volker and Stephen Symons, among others, read from their works and I read from one of the stories included in Let It Fall Where It Will by Lester Walbrugh because Lester was baking Grabouw Bread between insane bouts of loadshedding and could not make it to the launch (it was an honour to step into his literary shoes for a few minutes).